Three Wishes, Page 31

  She didn't realize they'd start clearing the plates away so soon.

  Somebody pulled into the lane in front of her without signaling, and Cat slammed on her brake and her horn simultaneously. That was it. The novelty of driving had taken approximately four minutes to wear off.

  She was going over to Lyn's place for coffee.

  The famously gorgeous Hank, Lyn's American ex-boyfriend, was in Sydney, and Lyn, for some unfathomable reason, wanted Cat to meet him.

  "You're not trying to set me up with him, are you?" asked Cat. There was a suspicious breathlessness in Lyn's voice.

  "No!" said Lyn. "And anyway--well, you'll see. Just come. Bring a cake."

  Cat pulled over across the road from the bakery and hopped out of the car. The traffic was beginning to slow and a truck pulled up beside her. The passenger, his arm resting along the windowsill and his feet up on the dashboard, glanced down at her and gave a relaxed wolf whistle.

  Cat looked up and met the guy's eyes. He grinned. She grinned back. The traffic moved and she ran across the road, the sun warm on the back of her neck.

  As she waited in the bakery for her turn, Cat the sneering sideline observer popped into her head. You do know why you're feeling a little bit happy, don't you? It's because that guy whistled at you! Instead of feeling objectified like a good feminist should, you're actually feeling flattered, aren't you? You're feeling pretty! You're even feeling grateful! You must be getting old if you feel good when some guy in a truck whistles at you. You make me sick!

  "What can I do for this beautiful young lady?"

  The little man behind the counter gave her a big flirtatious wink.

  "Mmmm. I don't know. What are you offering to do for me?" said Cat, and the little man roared with appreciative laughter, slapping his hand on the counter.

  "Hoo-eee! If I was twenty years younger!"

  Bloody hell. Now you're getting off flirting with old men.

  Shut up, you boring cow! Get off my back!

  As she drove toward Lyn's place, the cake in its white paper bag on the seat next to her, together with a free chocolate eclair--"Don't you be telling my wife!"--she remembered how Nana Kettle always flirted outrageously with the butcher and the man in the fruit shop. When you went shopping with Nana it was like shopping in a village. "Here comes trouble!" people would call out as she approached.

  Cat reached over for the chocolate eclair and took a gigantic bite. Chocolate, pastry, and cream exploded sweetly in her mouth.

  Nana would have to make all new friends in her new local shopping center. She would too. She'd probably know all their names after the first week.

  Cat was there when Nana had walked through the empty rooms of her house for the last time. Her bruises had faded to dirty yellow. Her hair was bouncy and curly again. "Looks much bigger now, doesn't it, darling?"

  Then she took a big breath, turned on her heel, and walked out the front door.

  "That's that," she said firmly.

  Cat drove with one hand on the wheel and licked cream from her fingers.

  She pulled into Lyn's street and took another gigantic mouthful of eclair.

  The sun really was quite warm. The eclair really was quite delicious.

  She parked the car and peeled off her sweater as she got out of the car and walked up the driveway to knock on Lyn's door; she listened for the sound of Maddie's footsteps pattering excitedly down the hallway, about to catapult herself into Cat's arms.

  Maybe it wasn't that hard to be happy.

  Maybe tomorrow morning, she would walk into Graham Hollingdale's office and hand him a letter of resignation, launch herself free, and see what happened.

  Maybe she'd sell the unit.

  Fuck it, maybe she'd even get her hair cut.

  Steady on, girl, said sideline Cat.

  Maybe it wasn't giving in. Maybe it was fighting back.

  Approximately two hours later Cat came back out to her car. She put on her seat belt, and turned the keys in the ignition.

  There were goose bumps of possibility on her arms. Her fingers danced a celebratory jig on the steering wheel.

  CHAPTER 27

  Hank was about to arrive, and Lyn went into Kara's bedroom to ask her whether her new shirt looked better buttoned or unbuttoned with a camisole underneath. One of Lyn's new goals was to ask the people in her life for help more often ("Make at least two requests per week, whether needed or not"). So far, it was working surprisingly well. Everyone was so pleased to be asked (her mother-in-law almost cried with joy when Lyn asked her to bring a dessert to dinner), and occasionally their help actually was somewhat helpful.

  She'd also enrolled in a meditation course. It was true that she gave up after one class (she couldn't stand the way the teacher spoke so very, very slowly), but as she explained to Michael, the old Lyn would have forced herself to finish it, so that was definite progress.

  Her battle with parking lots and panic attacks wasn't quite over yet, but she was confident she would win. She would take a calmer, more relaxed approach to life--even if it killed her.

  Lyn knocked on Kara's door. "I need some fashion advice. Your father is useless," she told Kara. "He just grunts. What do you think?"

  Kara pushed her headphones down onto her neck and sat up on her bed. "I think unbuttoned but without the camisole. Show your ex your sexy stomach."

  Lyn unbuttoned the shirt to reveal her midriff and looked at herself in Kara's wardrobe mirror.

  "I'm too old for that, don't you think?"

  "No way. You look hot. Dad will freak."

  Lyn smiled and swung her hips.

  "All right." Michael probably wouldn't even notice. She just wanted to please Kara really. "Thanks."

  The doorbell rang.

  "Ooh! You'd better go quick before Dad punches him in the nose!" said Kara, in a tone of mild condescension, as if the affairs of Lyn and Michael could never hope to be that interesting.

  Lyn met Michael in the hallway going to answer the bell, pulling rather sternly at his shirtsleeves, while Maddie ran ahead of him.

  He blocked her way. "Cover your stomach, woman!"

  Lyn did a netball feint and easily dodged around him.

  She opened the door to reveal a rosy, double-chinned, smiley face.

  "Hank?"

  "Hey, Lyn!"

  She peered at him. The boy from Spain was still there. He'd just been inflated like a balloon.

  "I've packed on a few pounds as you can see."

  "Haven't we all!" Lyn pushed open the door with one arm and rapidly buttoned up her shirt with the other.

  "Not you! You look great! Wow!"

  "Hank!" Michael crowed, his dimple creasing his cheek as he held out his hand. "Pleased to meet you, mate!"

  In fact, thought Lyn, he sounded excessively pleased to meet him.

  "Who you?" asked Maddie suspiciously, pulling at his trouser knee.

  "I'm Hank, honey!"

  Maddie observed him doubtfully and suddenly her face broke into a smile of delighted recognition. "Teletubby!"

  "Come in!" cried Michael and Lyn simultaneously and loudly, studiously ducking their heads to avoid each other's faces.

  They entertained Hank with a barbecue on the balcony. He was pleasingly enthralled with their harbor views and Australia in general.

  "This is the life!" he kept saying, as he sipped his beer and Lyn and Michael, who after all, lived the life, became expansive and smug.

  After awhile, Hank's fatness seemed to wear off, and when he laughed, Lyn could just catch a sliver of his former sexiness. It seemed unlikely however, that he would be making any more erotic appearances in her dreams. She blushed at the thought of eating mangoes in the bath with Hank, juice dripping from his double chin. "This is the life!"

  Kara came down and ate lunch with them and was chatty and intelligent, asking Hank interested questions about America. She even cleared away the plates, as if it were her normal practice.

  "What a charming girl!" s
aid Hank after she'd gone back up to her room. "My teenage daughter won't talk to me. She just sneers from her bedroom door."

  "Oh, Kara won't talk to me either," said Michael. "She thinks I'm an idiot."

  "Teenagers!" said Hank. "All the parenting articles say, Talk to them, listen to them! But how can you when they seem to find it physically painful to even look at you?"

  "Kara walks ten paces behind me," said Michael dolefully, refilling Hank's glass. "She says I shouldn't feel insulted--it's just in case she sees somebody she knows."

  "And there's so much to worry about! Suicides! Drugs! Boys!" continued Hank. "Those kids who go on shooting rampages. I can't even imagine the guilt their parents must feel."

  "Oh, I don't think Kara would shoot anybody," said Michael worriedly.

  "This year, we want to publish a sort of self-help title for teenagers," said Hank. "Something funny. Not preachy. Speaks their language. I'll tell you, though, we're having a helluva job finding a good manuscript. Proves my point--nobody can talk to teenagers!"

  "I'll get us another bottle of wine," said Lyn.

  She went upstairs to Kara.

  "That newsletter Cat's been writing for you and your friends. Can I show some of them to Hank? He's a publisher and he's looking for an author. I think Cat could do it."

  "As if," said Kara, dismissively.

  "This could be good for Cat," wheedled Lyn. "And I'll let you borrow my leather jacket for Sarah's birthday."

  Kara gave her a shrewd look. "And your new boots?"

  Lyn squirmed.

  "I haven't even worn them yet myself! But O.K. Deal."

  "Don't let Dad see it!" shrieked Kara as Lyn went back downstairs.

  "Here's something that might interest you," she told Hank. "You can read it now, while Michael helps me with dessert."

  "Oh," said Hank, looking disappointed. "Sure." From the roar of laughter as she came down the stairs, he and Michael had obviously been doing some male bonding.

  "Are you sure fruit and cheese are enough?" chortled Michael in the kitchen. "He probably eats pumpkin pie or, I don't know, hotcakes. I didn't know you liked your men so...tubby."

  Lyn shoved a piece of Brie into his mouth and a colander into his hands. "Shut up and wash the strawberries."

  "Who is the author?" asked Hank, when they went back out on the veranda. He looked thinner now he was talking in his professional voice.

  "It's my sister," said Lyn proudly.

  "Who hates self-help books," contributed Michael.

  "Well, I'd sure like to meet her while I'm here." Hank cut himself a piece of cheese and looked fat again. "I think she could write in exactly the right sort of tone. This could be a winner."

  "I'll get her," said Lyn. "I'll get her to come now."

  "Oh, that's not nec--"

  But Lyn was already rushing for the phone.

  When Cat arrived, she presented her to Hank, dragged Michael away to help put Maddie to bed, and stayed in the kitchen. About twenty minutes later, Hank came inside looking for the bathroom.

  Lyn took a pot of coffee outside and sat down in front of Cat. She put her elbows on the table.

  "That man," said Cat slowly, looking at her fingernails, "wants me to do a proposal for a book. He seems to think there could be some money in it. Potentially quite good money."

  "So are you going to do it?" asked Lyn.

  Cat smiled. It was the wicked wide grin of ten-year-old Cat, hatching up another plan to swap classes or skip school or get around Maxine. Lyn hadn't seen her smile like that since before she lost the baby.

  "You bet I am."

  "Dad. How are you?"

  It still gave Lyn a little start, seeing her father open the door to the house in Turramurra. There was a tea towel over his shoulder.

  "Never better, love."

  In fact, thought Lyn, he had never looked older. His cheerful grin hadn't changed, but his cheeks seemed to have sagged and there were two deep crevices on either side of his mouth. Her eternally youthful father suddenly looked his age.

  The attack on his mother had deeply affected Frank. He couldn't read the paper or watch the news without winding himself into a frenzy. Maxine said that he'd been having nightmares. He kept leaping out of bed and abusing various pieces of furniture.

  It seemed that at the age of fifty-four, Frank Kettle experienced a terrible revelation. All those bad things that happened on the TV news--knife attacks, terrorist attacks, sniper attacks--actually happened to real people. They could happen to anybody. They could happen to his family. He wrote letters to his local MPs. He talked at length about "sick lunatics" and "murderous bastards." He wanted capital punishment. He wanted longer jail sentences. He wanted the lot of them bombed.

  "He's experiencing empathy for the first time in his life," said Cat, with a noticeable lack of empathy. "About time."

  "He's just surprised, poor Dad," said Gemma, who had always suffered from excessive empathy. Lyn had seen her walking down a street of parked cars, wincing each time she saw a parking ticket on a windshield.

  Lyn was surprised at her own reaction. All her life she had thought her father didn't take life seriously enough, and now that he was, she wanted him to stop it. She wanted to shield his bewildered eyes from the world and bring back silly Dad; Dad who used to be so absurd that Nana would say to him, "Stop being such a ham, Frank!" One day Cat changed it to: "Yeah, Daddy, stop being such a ham sandwich!" which Gemma thought was so incredibly funny that she literally fell off her chair laughing. After that they'd always be saying, "Daddy's being a ham sandwich again!" while he pranced around, doing the most stupid, slapstick things; anything for a laugh.

  She remembered their trips to Manly Beach and how they always had to run to catch the ferry. It drove her mad. She'd look back and see him staggering along, carrying Cat and Gemma under each arm, making grunting sounds and wobbling his head, because he was pretending to be a gorilla, for goodness' sake! Lyn would scream, "Come on, Dad!" What an uptight child she'd been.

  "Sleeping better?" she asked now, as she followed her father down the hallway.

  "Max tells me I had it out with the wardrobe last night," said Frank. "I don't remember a thing. I think she's making it up."

  "Why is there a tea towel on your shoulder?"

  "My turn to cook," said Frank. "I learned it from your mother. The first rule of cooking--carefully drape tea towel over left shoulder."

  Maxine was sitting in the living room drinking tea and doing the crossword. "Maddie hasn't woken up from her nap," she said, taking off her glasses. "Have a cup of tea with me? I've just made a pot."

  "I'll just get back to slaving away in the kitchen," said Frank.

  "You do that, dear."

  "You take turns to cook?" asked Lyn.

  "Of course!" Maxine poured tea for her. "We're a new-age couple."

  Lyn raised her eyebrows and didn't comment. "How was Maddie today?"

  "Dreadful." Maxine waved a dismissive hand. "I wanted to ask you something. How do you and your sisters feel about us being back together now?"

  "Um," said Lyn. She wasn't ready for the question. Her mind was feeling pleasantly stimulated by her day's work. Her new assistant wanted to introduce a "Frequent Brekkie Buyer" program. She was very professional and not annoyingly enthusiastic, but quite funny and nice. Actually, Lyn thought, she was probably going to be a new friend. It had been years since she'd made a new friend--it was a little bit like falling in love, except without the stress.

  "At Christmas lunch when you went off in a huff," began Maxine.

  It felt like centuries had been and gone since Christmas.

  "It was a very stressful day," said Lyn. "I thought my head was going to explode. I shouldn't have reacted like that. Sorry."

  Maxine looked irritated. "No, don't say sorry. Tell me what you felt. I don't think we do enough of that in this family."

  "Are you kidding? I think we do far too much of that in our family!"

  "I meant
in a calm, rational way."

  "All right."

  Lyn lowered her voice. She could hear Frank whistling "Rhinestone Cowboy" in the kitchen, accompanied by clattering pots.

  "I always thought that Dad treated you badly," she said quietly.

  "Speak up! He can't hear a thing! He gets deafer every day."

  "Dad treated you badly. I remember. So, when he made his announcement, I just felt--"

  Maxine interrupted her, and Lyn smiled into her teacup.

  "He did treat me badly. I treated him quite badly too. But we were different people! That's what you girls don't understand! Do you remember when I was seeing that orthodontist? He admitted that he'd been dreadful to his ex-wife. I didn't care! He was an extremely uninteresting man, as you know, so that was the end of that, but my point is that when I think about Frank's ex-wife, she seems like a stranger! I don't think about her as being me! He has mistakes in his past. I have mistakes in mine. The fact that we actually are each other's mistakes is irrelevant!"

  "O.K. then," said Lyn.

  "Of course, your father likes to pretend that we are the same people and he never stopped loving me." Maxine rolled her eyes but couldn't hide her pleasure. "But that's Frank."

  "As long as you're happy," Lyn was beginning to wonder where all this was leading.

  "So. I've been worried about him lately."

  Lyn put a finger to her lips.

  "I'm telling you, he can't hear. I thought of something nice to cheer him up."

  "Yes?"

  Her mother laced her hands across her stomach and looked slightly bashful.

  "Tomorrow night I'm going to propose to him."

  "You're going to ask him to marry you?"

  "That's what proposals are generally for, Lyn, yes. What do you think?"

  "I think." Lyn put down her teacup and wondered what she did think. "I think it's a...lovely idea." There were worse ideas, after all.

  "Good!" said Maxine in a "that's settled" tone. "I'll go and check if that little horror is showing any signs of waking up."

  Lyn could hear her father still whistling in the kitchen. The tune wasn't "Rhinestone Cowboy" anymore.

  She picked up the empty cups and carried them into the kitchen.

  Frank looked up from the saucepan of pasta sauce he was stirring and gave her an innocent look, as he continued to whistle.

  Now she recognized the tune. It was a rather upbeat version of the Wedding March.